


all the changes you put me through / am i in love to stay?

by bigembarrassingheart



Category: The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F, Fix-It, Not Canon Compliant, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, Purple Prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:29:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22022599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigembarrassingheart/pseuds/bigembarrassingheart
Summary: you force out the truth, that something happened, through your eyes and your bones and the dead girls in the groundAn exploration of Ruth's life after the novel, and how she attempts to both discover and let go of the past.
Relationships: Ruth Connors (The Lovely Bones)/ Original Female Character
Kudos: 2





	all the changes you put me through / am i in love to stay?

**Author's Note:**

> me naming two of my fics in a row after talking heads songs? it's more likely than you think.

i

trade my old shoes for new feet

years in this city, there is the grime you seek out yourself and there is the natural grime of the air. you go days without talking, not like that’s really a change. you wear through your shoes and keep wearing them, you dream of girls and girls with dirt in their mouths, you reread your own poems. you go to work, you go to a place that is your home but will never be your home. home disappeared a long time ago when he bought a shovel and a charm bracelet. so you walk. so you write. so you stay quiet. bartenders make plans, you spill wine on your sweater.

ii

the doctors didn’t tell you that you were dying

eventually, there is a dam of words residing behind your teeth and making you choke. you surprise even yourself as you dial the number of your one friend, nevermind real or fake. you used to wear lonely so well. he talks and talks about the blood and the knives that will pay him so well, hinting at the corn and the pom pom hat that pulled you two together, and there is a fleeting desire to be normal that you wave away, like cigarette smoke hanging out the window. you feel different, like your monthly dream of forgetting, of forgetting to wake up, of forgetting to wake up for school. he doesn’t say anything.

iii

you can’t forgive what you can’t forget

you walk home from work. it is four in the morning, and you start to cry. keeled over on the sidewalk, coughing up pain you didn’t remember existed. a voice says are you okay and you flinch, you don’t speak unless spoken to and nobody speaks to you. she - you feel your brain take note of that fact - helps you to your feet, and you’re not sure you’re really as old as they say you are. she asks you to tell her what’s wrong, you think about blue eyes and brown eyes and green eyes and red eyes and you force out the truth, that something happened, through your eyes and your bones and the dead girls in the ground.

iv

i’m not impossible to touch so long

has passed you’re sneaking her into the old woman’s closet, and a part of her laughs at the irony. a part of you feels like love, a part of you starts to cry. a part of you lies on the bed, a part of you flies away. a part of you was left in that town, a part of you was taken by the city. she is entirely whole, she makes space for you when you have no space. you sleep curled together in a hug. numb arms and eyes. you slowly become tethered, a balloon being pulled back to earth. she sings, echoing across the sky you walk. she urges you to know, echoing across a map all the way back.

v

flower myself inside out

he hugs you and she kisses you and he looks at you and you cry. and your spirit is back in the river. he was squatting in your body, and for a long time it wasn’t home. she lies and tells visitors she isn’t here, please try again another time. he says he’s sorry and you believe him, nothing wrong happened but now you’re wrong. the sky is so low, there is nowhere to walk but home. all the time you spent, be kind and please rewind. make her see the pot-smoking crying girl of death and the dead girl forcing you out of yourself, and the living boy forcing you back in, and the girl on the street pretty as a rock song letting you fly in and fly back as you please.

epilogue

my mind holds the key

you broke every bone in your body, and her body, and his body, and she’s the doctor, not him. she’s the doctor pulling loveliness out of the grave. back on the narrow bed, you look up to the sky and smile. you sleep the whole night, curled up too tight. even before the soft earth caved in, you were you, and even after the concrete failed to break she’s still her. the rain tastes sweet, and you call your parents. love is a seed finally bursting through the loam.


End file.
